My Paypal Nightmare... nearly 900 Pounds held for no reason, insult added to injury.....

[Petra]

I am in the UK. A friend of mine sent me over 900 Pounds (1400+ US Dollar) per paypal on Saturday. It hit my paypal account, they took 50something dollars in charges, which would be fine but...

a few minutes later the money was gone, but not the charges, putting my Paypal account in the red by 40something Pounds Sterling.

Ever since then we have both (my friend in the USA) tried to sort this out, countless calls from my friend to Paypal in the US, she did whatever she was asked to do, but now, coming up for 2 Days later, the money is still gone and I am still left with a negative balance on my Paypal account and my money gone.

It was sent NOT as a Sale (it wasn't) but under the "send money to friends and family" thing.

I have had NO correspondence from PayPal since they informed me the money was taken. I added two notes, neither was replied to.

I am absolutely disgusted and frightened. What else are we supposed to do? I can not afford to leave that money in PayPal's hands. It was not returned to the other party, PayPal just hang on to it (no doubt earning interest on it) and noone is talking to me or telling me what is happening...

I kind of appreciate that they have security measures in place but this wasn't a "sale" - this was two consenting adults deciding to send / receive a sum of money using PayPal as the service, and paying for it.

How long will PayPal hold the money, and how DARE they put my account into negative balance when THEY decide to dispute a payment where BOTH parties communicated to them that the money was legitimately sent and received?

There are NO issues with those funds. It is money I earned (royalties) and all US taxes were paid and everything was 100% legitimate and above board.

Anyone come across something like this? How long will it take to get this resolved? Who can I go to if it is not resolved in a timely manner ? Police? Finacial Ombudsman?? At this moment in time PayPal have my money and are not even communicating with me.......

[PayPal_lucy]

Hey there Petra,

From reading your post I can understand the frustration, it's a lot of money.

If the payment was sent as a personal payment, then there would only be a fee if the payment was sent from a credit card, the sender however, has the option to pay this fee.

In relation to the hold on the payment, if it is held security as it flagged as possible fraud, then all the sender has to do is contact PayPal and let us know that he did make the payment. He may be asked to send an email so we have it in writing as well.

Do let me know how it turned out or if its been resolved yet.

[loutra]

I have a question regarding a similar situation.

I received a transfer of money from the US. 

I was charged and the sender was charged?

Why is this? It was only supposed to be one or the other of us... and the sender was supposed to pay any fees.

Please can you explain?

Thanks 

[PayPal_Rachael]

Hi loutra,

Welcome to the community forum and thanks for posting.

You are correct that only one party to a transaction pays a fee for this. If you have paid a fee to receive your money it means that the person sending it used a commercial payment option and they did not pay a fee at their end. What the sender might be seeing is a currency conversion if the sent the money to you in GBP but they will not have paid the transaction fee.

I hope this helps.

Rachael